Reason Number 67 Why I Don't Home School

Monday-EVERY SINGLE WEEK, so far anyway.

Me- "Lana you have to do your homework."

Lana- "WHAT??  URRGGG!! I HATE HOMEWORK!!"

Me- "You have to do at least two pages today."

She usually has 5 or 6 pages to do each week.  She gets it on Monday and turns it in on Friday.  It works out well, so we can do it when we have time.   It's not difficult for her, she just really doesn't like to do it.

Lana- "WHY?!  I don't FEEL like doing it!"

Me- "Ok, Lana, but then you'll have to tell your teacher that."

Lana- "UGH!  FINE!  I'll DO it!  But I'm only doing TWO pages today!"

I swear we have this exact same conversation every week.  Then the next day we go through it again.  She always does it, but never without complaint.  This is only Kindergarten.  Her homework is practicing her writing, drawing and coloring.  I dread what happens when the homework gets real in a couple of years.

Then there is Sonya.  I never have any real problems with getting her to do her homework.  She usually breezes through it.  Until she gets stuck on something.  Then the world around her and everyone else crumbles to dust.

This past Wednesday:

Me- "Sonya do you still have homework left?"

Sonya- "Yeeesss....Ummmm..."

Me- "What do you have left?" Obviously it's something she doesn't want to do.

Sonya-"I have to write something, but I don't know what to wriiitttee abbbouuutt!!"

At this point, she's near tears.

Me- "Well, what did your teacher tell you to write about?"

Sonya- "A time when I was brave.  It can be a real story or made up.  And I have to write TWO PARAGRAPHS!!"

Now the tears start.

Me- "Sonya calm down.  I'm sure you can think of something to write about."

Sonya-as the world crumbles around her, "I CAN'T!  I have NO ideas."

Me- "Okay, okay.  What about when you jumped off the diving board for the first time, or you climbed the rope at gymnastics after being afraid for so long?  You were pretty brave those times.  Do you think you can write about one of those?"

Sonya- Through her tears, "I guess."

Then she goes off to her room where I hear her continue to cry for the next fifteen minutes before she actually sits down at her desk and writes.  It takes her all of about seven minutes once she actually does it, and it's a good well written story.  No reason for all the tears.  No reason except to create drama.

So for those of you out there who home school, kudos to you. I have NO idea how you deal every day all day with getting your kid to do their work.   I'm pretty sure if I did home school, I wouldn't have children left to school after about two weeks.  Maybe one.

Kindergarten Homework

Lana has homework every week.  Yes, even in Kindergarten they get homework.  It's nothing to difficult.  They practice writing words they've learned that week or tracing and writing their letters.  It's mostly just a review for them, but it doesn't keep Lana from whining about having to do it EVERY week.  Sonya always loved doing homework and even now doesn't mind it so much.  Lana is not that kid.  The next thirteen years are going to be a blast!  

A couple weeks ago, as part of her homework, her teacher suggested they create a small sentence with the word they practiced writing.  She encouraged the parents to allow the kids to sound out words and spell them the way they hear them, even if it isn't the correct spelling.  This is how they learn to read and write, and eventually spell correctly.  I always make Lana think of the sentence on her own, even though that is often met with groans from her.  In the end she will do it, but she's NOT happy about it.

One day she was working on writing the word "me".  She got to the part where she has to write a sentence. She moaned about it for a minute then said, 

"I know!  How about I write, "That is me."

"That is a great sentence, Lana," I told her.  So she proceeded to write what she heard.

A while later I took her homework to look over it and make sure everything looked okay.  Then I saw the sentence:

If you noticed I erased a word she originally wrote.  It said "Tha tit is me."  Later I had her add the 't' at the end of 'Tha' after I got rid of the word 'tit'.    I know Mrs. Lombardo wants us to let the kids sound things out and spell it themselves, but I guess I felt completely leaving the word 'tit' in my daughter's homework would not be the best parental move.  Yes, I laughed at this for a good five minutes and even though I erased most of it, I left just a enough behind to give her teacher a good chuckle as well.  This is the kind of thing that makes the groaning about the homework just a bit more bearable.